Ice Age: The Meltdown

More sitcom shenanigans.

Queen Latifah now joins the cast of celebrities that are keeping great voice actors out of work. The charm and drama that was in the original is utterly lost now - our mournful, introspective heroes trudge along a road and now and again they stop talking and stuff happens to them. Each hero has a single personal issue that needs resolved spelled out for the audience - and my goodness, don't the new team of writers just return to that tiresome angst again and again and again and again and again.

The only good thing in this movie is small cute animals doing funny slapstick. And even that was better in the original. The plot does not exist. Strictly for the smallest kids.

More straightforwardly, Ice Age: The Sequel. All the existential angst gives the film more resonance than some other computer cartoons, an ominous low hum drowned out nonetheless by the au courant smart-ass brassiness. The nonverbal squirrel, wrestling with his own existential angst, chasing the unattainable acorn, continues to put in intermittent appearances but ceases to steal the show.

The Scrat scenes are great but the rest is downright disappointing compared to the first one. Latifa's character was very annoying.